Difference between product discount and special in Opencart

Question

I have different customer groups and have set special price for each group.

When I set special price on a product for a group and login as a user from that particular group in the shop's front-end, I can see the new special price below the original price.

However when I set discount price on a product for a group and login as a user from that particular group in the shop's front-end, the new price is not shown in the product list but the price is discounted on checkout.

Is this how it's supposed to work?

Answer 1

The difference is simple:

The discount is sale on product's price when somebody is ordering more pieces of the same product. In other words, the price for one piece may be $10, but using the discount You can set that after buying 5 pieces one piece will cost $8, after buying 10 pcs one will cost $6 etc. This information is then displayed only on product's detail page.

The special is normal product's price sale, e.g. normally the price is $150 but using the special You can set the price to be $120 which will be shown in all product listings as "old-price - new-price".

EDIT: As comment from Dean Or states, if the special is set for the product, it has higher priority than the discount. The reason is because discounts are considered to be set for longer periods of time while specials for shorter ones (special events, discount week, black friday, etc.). In this case when a product has both discount and special set, the special is used.